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Cabinet, Parliament Session on Economic Issues

A group of cabinet and parliament members sat together in an unofficial gathering on Tuesday night to discuss the country's current economic issues; informed the Member of Parliament Kamalodin Pirmoazen during the Iranian parliament's session on Wednesday.
The gathering which took place in the office of Iran's first vice president, Es'haq Jahangiri was attended by the head of Management and Planning Organization and Government's Spokesperson Mohammad Baqer Nobakht, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Valiollah Seif, and the former head of Management and Planning Organization Mohammad Ali Najafi. Parliament representatives including the heads of economic committees and 22 parliament members were also present, IRNA reported.
The attendees reviewed possible avenues to overcome the recent oil price slump in the proposed budget for the next Iranian fiscal year (starting March 21). The officials also call for reducing the current expenditures instead of increasing the current year's budget.
A joint government-parliament workgroup to gradually remove high-income Iranians from the list of cash subsidy receivers as part of the so-called Subsidy Reform Plan was also suggested, to save government resources by reducing expenditure.
Expansion of non-oil exports and controlling illegal trade in Iran "which includes illegally imported goods worth $13 billion and unlawful exports worth $8 billion," were among other issues discussed in the meeting.
In addition, attention was drawn to the industrial sector to earmark their required cash flow and facilitate completion of 70,000 semi-finished industrial projects.
It was also decided that due to the next year's contractionary budget, new projects will commence only if the government revenues improve.